I have been working on all these designs for a long time now and finally finished them just in time for this years Animal Advocacy Camp here in Vancouver.

My first design is one I have been working on since the documentary Blackfish came out in theatres. In this picture you can see a sketch of the design before I scanned it to my computer.

The orca is a symbol of kindness, intelligence, and compassion. The way we treat these beautiful creatures is no where near compassionate, intelligent, or kind. After watching the documentary Blackfish I felt the need to create a design that represented the pain these animals endure everyday in captivity. Stolen from their family to live in confinement and subjected to starvation training to do circus tricks for the rest of their lives.

This blackfish is displayed squished in a fish bowl and it's dorsal fin is collapsed over the side of the bowl to represent the lack of space these large animals have to swim in. I placed the hashtag #BLACKFISH underneath to encourage people to look it up and watch the documentary for themselves. The more people that watch Blackfish the better chance there is to end the cruelty of their captivity.

This next design is one that is I hope will change some hearts and minds to adopt a compassionate vegan diet.

Traditionally select animals from the northwest coast have been chosen for formline design such as orcas, wolves and eagles to name a few. We respect these animals and view them as family members. We admire their strengths, skills and wisdom. We tell stories about these animals as teachers to learn from them and better ourselves. It was these teachings that taught me to respect all animals.

The intention of this design is to give a new perspective and view this baby veal calf through a new lens. Veal calves are jubilant and energetic and teach us to find joy in the simple things. His life has just as much meaning as any other animal and he deserves just as much respect.

Veal calves are a by-product of the dairy industry. Just like humans cows only produce milk during pregnancy for their calf. The dairy industry separates the calf from his mother at birth and confine it to a tiny crate to restrict its movement and keep its muscles soft. The mother is confined to a stall and has her utters pumped until they bleed.

I designed this seal because there is a misrepresentation that the canadian seal hunt is vital to our northern aboriginal communities and that because it's a cultural hunt we are not allowed to question the ethics of it. The canadian seal hunt is mostly carried out by large companies that are not owned or operated by aboriginals and most of the animal body is left behind and not used (doesn't sound very traditional). Another lie told to the public by the government is that the seals are depleating our fish stocks and by killing the seals we are restoring balance to our oceans. This is not the case.